I know it stems from a study of ancient mtDNA and autosomal dna (and I moved a thread about it to the mtDNA subforum), but the part relevant to R1b is this:

Quote from: Dienekes

There have been several indications linking Northwestern Europe with the Northeast Caucasus region. The latter exhibits high levels of Y-haplogroup R1b, the main Northwest European lineage. It also exhibits unexpectedly high levels of the "Northwest" component. I have little doubt that these twin facts constrain our understanding of the peopling of Western Europe by anchoring it -in some manner- to the Caspian and its environs.

If I had to guess I would propose the following scenario:

The "Northwestern" component represents the pre-Megalithic first farmers of Northwestern Europe, consisting of Linearbandkeramik farmers emanating from Central Europe and admixing with pre-farming Atlantic hunter-gatherers. The "Megalithic" phase of the Neolithic saw the infusion of a new wave of maritime colonists originating in the eastern Mediterranean ("Southeastern") via Iberia ("Southwestern") and reaching their terminus in Scandinavia. The last major population movement into Northwestern Europe involved the arrival of a population element from the northern parts of the Near East via the Caucasus, probably originating in the north Iran/Armenia/Azerbaijan/Dagestan "short arc" west and south of the Caspian where there is a local maximum of R1b frequency.

Thankfully, there is ongoing ancient DNA work on both the European steppe and the Balkans/Anatolia, i.e., the two possible conduits through which any additional "players" in the peopling of Europe must have passed through. Together with ancient DNA study of other archaeological cultures in continental Europe itself, (e.g., Corded Ware/Bell Beaker) our picture of prehistoric events is bound to become ever sharper in coming years.And, hopefully, once the actors in the drama are revealed, we can move on to the late Bronze and Iron Ages, to see how they interacted to form the historical peoples of West Eurasia.

I know it's just theorizing, but it is interesting. He is tying ancient autosomal findings to a possible source for European R1b.

I noticed this too. It is interesting that the neolithic autosomal dna does not carry a Caucasus component while today's western Euro's do. Without getting into the IE debate, it supports what many of us are saying in that R1b did not arrive or expand until at least the later neolithic or metal ages.

The NW Euro component is a subset of *some* Mediterranean farmer + N.European hunter gatherer. Another portion of the Mediterranean breaks into SW European partially and some into the SE European. The SE European is really just a Levantine component which doesn't fit into any European group + some leftover eastern Mediterranean. The K=7 data is less accurate, but at least does show some Iberian specific alleles. From what I read earlier the Cardium ware originated in the Adriatic sea and is related to at least some of the megalithic structures. The data seems to be in the right place and the right time and yet there are always naysayers even when data is right in front of their face. Megalithism could have been part of a cult which gradually evolved, or was modified over several centuries or a millenium in different regions. I don't see why this would be strange, nor why it would necessarily mean it was adopted by unrelated people - especially when the data fits.

ADD: I disagree completely. I think megalithism relates to R1b completely, and demonstrates that R1b lines married indigenous north European women - probably blondes :D

Copper age Otzi was G2a4 and had substantial Caucasus component as well as Mediterranean. LBK could have introduced Caucasus to Central Europe. I'm certain TRB followed coasts rather than cut through Central Europe didn't it?

What I learned from this study is that we cannot consider Y R1b in isolation to the other mtDNA clades such as H and indeed the full Autosomal analysis. The conclusion of the study is that the Neolithic waves out of the Caucasus and Anatolia took both the Maritine and River routes and this was achieved by leap frogging phases. IMO the Megalithic was also a key vector in these migrations and there is evidence that the routes of R1b and H overlapped. The Megalithic was essentially an Atlantic movement. It appears to be a clan based planned movement as opposed to a bottom up farming Demic diffusion model.I also learned the importance of Sardinia, Tuscany, Italy and Basque country in the timing and location of the migrations.

"A new paper in Science solidifies the case for migration as the cause for the diffusionism of agriculture in Europe. Discontinuity between early Neolithic farmers and Mesolithic foragers in Central Europe had provided strong hints about this discontinuity, and these were confirmed by other ancient European DNA, e.g., from Treilles, or the Tyrolean Iceman. The case now appears irrefutable, that people not ideas were involved in the spread farming to the northern fringes of Europe."

"This farming spread must have been by boat. There were no native aurochs on Zealand (Aaris-Sorensen 1980), so the early cattle at Akonge were definitely imported. Farther north, agriculture was probably carried by boat up the coasts, an easier method of travel than overland (see above). Baltic crossings would require longer open-water voyages than in the Cardial or LBK. Irish curraghs can, however, make substantial voyages and weather considerable seas (Hornell 1938, sec. 5:17–21), and a large one has even crossed the Atlantic (Severin 1978)."

"Two models have dominated European prehistory in recent decades: acculturationists claimed that the Neolithic package of domesticated plants and animals was transmitted across the continent while the people largely stayed put, while demic diffusionists claimed that people did move, but -at least in the most popular version of the model- that they gradually intermarried with local hunter-gatherers, forming a genetic cline of ancestry, at the far end of which the farmers were mostly derived from local foragers."

"Both these models are now revealed to be wrong: rather, it seems that "leapfrog" colonization may be responsible for the spread of agriculture and its associated technologies (such as Megalithism) across Europe. In this model, farmers lept from place to place across the landscape intentionally, preserving their gene pool and largely ignoring the pre-existing foragers of the landscape."

"The second important point of the new study is the revelation that the single Neolithic individual from northernmost Europe was similar to extant southern Europeans:The Neolithic hunter-gatherers shared most alleles with Northern Europeans, and the lowest allele sharing was with populations from Southeastern Europe (Fig. 3A). In contrast, the Neolithic farmer shared the greatest fraction of alleles with Southeastern European populations (Cypriots and Greeks), and showed a pattern of decreasing genetic similarity for populations from the Northwest and Northeast extremes of Europe (Fig. 3B). "

"The farming way of life originated in the Near East some 11,000 years ago and had reached most of the European continent 5000 years later. However, the impact of the agricultural revolution on demography and patterns of genomic variation in Europe remains unknown. We obtained 249 million base pairs of genomic DNA from ~5000-year-old remains of three hunter-gatherers and one farmer excavated in Scandinavia and find that the farmer is genetically most similar to extant southern Europeans, contrasting sharply to the hunter-gatherers, whose distinct genetic signature is most similar to that of extant northern Europeans. Our results suggest that migration from southern Europe catalyzed the spread of agriculture and that admixture in the wake of this expansion eventually shaped the genomic landscape of modern-day Europe."

There are two framing issues which make this paper’s results intelligible. The first is general. Agriculture likely did not spread in Europe simply through the random-walk “bottom up” expansion of small groups of farmers into an empty frontier. Rather, these populations were almost certainly organized on some supra-clan political level, and used their organizational resources to map out appropriate zones of settlement prior to expansion. The result in the early periods was a “leapfrog” point to point migration pattern, focusing on inland river valleys and coastal zones of rich land factor inputs and clement habitation. This sort of interleaving settlement pattern could easily explain sharp genetic distinctions between co-located populations, which only admixed over time as the last hunter-gatherers did acculturate. The second issue is specific to Scandinavia: it seems that because of its ecological conditions agriculture came late to this zone of Europe, and hunter-gatherer populations reliant on marine organisms were demographically particularly robust. The discontinuous expansion and stasis of farming on the ecological frontier was certainly the case in Scandinavia for nearly 1,000 years, as hunter-gatherers persisted as the spread of farming was halted.

I have written a lot about this.Dienekes is a Greek nationalist (even though if he is who I think he is, he is actually overwhelmingly Italian, but evidently he doesn’t feel so) who tries to demonstrate some agenda, pretty all flooded:a) the presence of Greeks in Italy like J2 or E-V13, whereas these haplogroups are present in Italy long before the Greek colonization. In the same way failed the theory of Roy King to demonstrate the presence of Greeks in Corsica at Alalia, whereas History demonstrates that it is wrong.b) The last paper on Pashtuns, with no presence there of E-V13, has recently falsified the theory dear to Dienekes that there were some Greek descendants from the time of Alexander.This autosomal analysis of these Swedish hunter-gatherers and farmers is based on a few thousands of SNPs, not selected like in other tests, and is worth nothing. I have said in a post of mine that Dienekes is “pathetic”.Costa Tsirigakis wrote privately to me giving a link to 23andMe where these problems were discussed:

I looked at it, and saw that a half Tuscan half Jewess found herself to match a Swede of the paper at 85% and saying that it was her Ashkenazic ancestry to raise up her percentage, whereas we know that Ashkenazim are mixed, above all Italians, but also Khazars (see the same paper on Pashtuns) but undoubtedly also Central and East Europeans (from where has come the high presence in them of CCRdelta32, of one mutation of the Breast Cancer arose certainly in North-East Europe, etc.?). How much was her ancestry reliable for this test?I wrote to Costa Tsirigakis: “I thank you but you know I am interested to other”. And he: “Yes -- good to hear that you are well..”.

I have given also in this forum the path of R1b, and above all the haplotype of Mangino (the Tuscan Mancini), I asked without any answer to test again and above all for intermediate SNPs between R1b1* and R-M269. I say again that Vince Vizachero tested at FTDNA without his permission the Italian Romitti for L150-, before he asked for that test, and the test of his son arrived after some years. Now, after the post of Ted Kandell to Rootsweb about the test of an African A0 and the not satisfactory reply of Thomas Krahn, my suspects are becoming certitudes. There are too many interests, not only economical but above all political, beyond this.

I think to not have to repeat my theories. You can read what the same A_Wode writes here: “From what I read earlier the Cardium ware originated in the Adriatic sea and is related to at least some of the megalithic structures. The data seems to be in the right place and the right time and yet there are always naysayers even when data is right in front of their face”. And Heber writes: “I also learned the importance of Sardinia, Tuscany, Italy and Basque country in the timing and location of the migrations”. We know from the papers of Zilhao who colonized by sea the Iberian peninsula, who carried there the hg. R which expanded along the Atlantic Sea to the Isles and I have always asked if those Italian colonizers were of Middle Eastern origin or autochthonous. By my analyses I suppose autochthonous, but this shall be demonstrated by aDNA. Heber says too: “we cannot consider Y R1b in isolation to the other mtDNA clades such as H and indeed the full Autosomal analysis […] and there is evidence that the routes of R1b and H overlapped”. But where was hg. H born? After the paper of Behar et al. and the recently finding of some H in Palaeolithic Iberia what shall we think? And what could I demonstrate if I had labs and clones?

There are several problems with attempts to make sense of whole-genome studies.

1) They have no chronological component (though some researchers are doing their best to give them one), unlike sex-specific markers mtDNA and Y-DNA which we can put into a sequence.

2) The number of "ancestral components" that are discovered is the result of the choice made by the user of the software. One simply decides to go for a particular number and the coloured bands appear. These are not actual original populations which mixed or migrated or whatever. For example the two "ancestral components" found by Reich et al in South Asia, ANI and ASI are most probably composed of multiple sources. It just happens that one group of sources were comparatively similar, being closer to Europeans, Near Easterners and Central Asians. The archaeological, historical and linguistic evidence points to multiple waves of arrival in the Indian subcontinent from the Neolithic to the Scythians which could have fed into ANI.

3) Assumptions made about the origin of these "ancestral components" based solely on present-day concentrations of same have the same problems that beset study of mtDNA and Y-DNA in its early, unsophisticated days. The highest density of a component is not necessarily its origin point.

The Caucasus is not going to be the origin point of anything very much. This mountainous area has been a barrier to human passage from the south to the north Caspian. Armies and migrants did not pass through it if they could find a better way. From Mesolithic hunters onwards, people used boats to traverse the Caspian, avoiding most of the Caucasus. There was little human activity there until it was settled by Neolithic farmers from the Near East. Subsequently it has given refuge to various remnants of groups from the steppe to its north or from Anatolia to the south. The end result is an almost incredible diversity of languages, each preserved in a mountain enclave, but an overwhelmingly Neolithic genetic heritage. The R1b in the Caucasus is not very ancient there. It can be found in Indo-European speakers, the Armenians (South) and the Iranian-speaking Ossets (NE), who did not arrive there until quite late on. The Ossets are descendants of the Alans.

It is good to see Dienekes finally edging away from a focus on the Neolithic as the Big Event in terms of migration, but I think you will find that Razib Khan is really on fire these days. His recent piece Facing the Ocean is ambitious and highly readable.

I know it stems from a study of ancient mtDNA and autosomal dna (and I moved a thread about it to the mtDNA subforum), but the part relevant to R1b is this:

Quote from: Dienekes

There have been several indications linking Northwestern Europe with the Northeast Caucasus region. The latter exhibits high levels of Y-haplogroup R1b, the main Northwest European lineage. It also exhibits unexpectedly high levels of the "Northwest" component. I have little doubt that these twin facts constrain our understanding of the peopling of Western Europe by anchoring it -in some manner- to the Caspian and its environs.

If I had to guess I would propose the following scenario:

The "Northwestern" component represents the pre-Megalithic first farmers of Northwestern Europe, consisting of Linearbandkeramik farmers emanating from Central Europe and admixing with pre-farming Atlantic hunter-gatherers. The "Megalithic" phase of the Neolithic saw the infusion of a new wave of maritime colonists originating in the eastern Mediterranean ("Southeastern") via Iberia ("Southwestern") and reaching their terminus in Scandinavia. The last major population movement into Northwestern Europe involved the arrival of a population element from the northern parts of the Near East via the Caucasus, probably originating in the north Iran/Armenia/Azerbaijan/Dagestan "short arc" west and south of the Caspian where there is a local maximum of R1b frequency.

Thankfully, there is ongoing ancient DNA work on both the European steppe and the Balkans/Anatolia, i.e., the two possible conduits through which any additional "players" in the peopling of Europe must have passed through. Together with ancient DNA study of other archaeological cultures in continental Europe itself, (e.g., Corded Ware/Bell Beaker) our picture of prehistoric events is bound to become ever sharper in coming years.And, hopefully, once the actors in the drama are revealed, we can move on to the late Bronze and Iron Ages, to see how they interacted to form the historical peoples of West Eurasia.

I know it's just theorizing, but it is interesting. He is tying ancient autosomal findings to a possible source for European R1b.

Great post, Rich. Dienekes posits some interesting thoughts on the R1b-Northeast Caucasus connection.

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but one of the most striking statistics about R1b and the Caucasus, is that the Basques score 0 (zero) on Autosomal Caucasus scores. Irish, French, Spanish, British etc. all show a genetic relationship with current Caucasus populations, but the Basques don't.

I'm somewhat confused about what Dienekes is actually looking at. If it is Dagestan, there is not a lot of R1b there. In the small isolated population of the Kubachi, haplogroup J1*-M267 has become virtually fixed. Their language forms part of the Dagestan family, in which J1* predominates. Although J1 also occurs in the neighbouring Nahk language group, the dominant haplogroup there is J2ab4*-M67.

[Added] Hold the press! I have discovered what he means. (I think). The highest percentage (29%) of R1b - M269 in the North Caucasus found by Balanovsky 2011 was among the Lezghins of the southern part of Dagestan. They calculated this to be about 3,000 years old, much later than the Neolithic population there. It certainly would not be the source of European R1b, though the two could have a common origin not far away.

^ My thoughts exactly. What is he looking at and trying to say here? Some sort of late mass migration? Really? Decoupled from any other haplogroup and completely R1b? I mean seriously!?

I'd always thought Dienekes pretty fair, but when he re-aligned the data to be K=7 in order to boost up the SE European (aka Greece, Cyprus, W.Anatolia) any play it off like some great Proto-Greeks/Pelasgians colonized the western hunter-gatherers. I don't think that's a fair statement at all, and is really a twist of data to suit your own ends.

Its a bit of misnomer that there was a 'megalthic' wave of the Neolithic. This idea is very common among people on the internet but the idea of a wave of megalthic builders sweeping along the Med. and up the Atlantic was one of the first things that was disproved by radiocarbon. At its worst it in the category of the lunatic fringe.

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but one of the most striking statistics about R1b and the Caucasus, is that the Basques score 0 (zero) on Autosomal Caucasus scores. Irish, French, Spanish, British etc. all show a genetic relationship with current Caucasus populations, but the Basques don't.

Strange.

That is interesting that there is a lack of Caucasian among the Basques but not elsewhere in the high R1b world. That would tend to make me think the 'Caucasian' element is not down to the male R1b lineages. I would tend to agree with Jean too that 'Caucasian' probably is not literally from the Caucuses which is basically a refuge area not a womb of nations. I would agree with Jean that R1b was probably on one side or other of the Caucuses with the southern (Anatolian) end seeming more likely although I dont think an origin on the steppes can be ruled out. It is also interesting that Ossetians and Armenians have high R1b and are generally though to have moved there from somewhere else. Maybe the original R1b homeland no longer has much R1b and the hotspots of ancient R1b are really displaced survival pockets from somewhere else. Places like the Caucuses and Armenia seem more likely to be retreat areas than origin points to me.

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but one of the most striking statistics about R1b and the Caucasus, is that the Basques score 0 (zero) on Autosomal Caucasus scores. Irish, French, Spanish, British etc. all show a genetic relationship with current Caucasus populations, but the Basques don't.

Strange.

That is interesting that there is a lack of Caucasian among the Basques but not elsewhere in the high R1b world. That would tend to make me think the 'Caucasian' element is not down to the male R1b lineages. I would tend to agree with Jean too that 'Caucasian' probably is not literally from the Caucuses which is basically a refuge area not a womb of nations. I would agree with Jean that R1b was probably on one side or other of the Caucuses with the southern (Anatolian) end seeming more likely although I dont think an origin on the steppes can be ruled out. It is also interesting that Ossetians and Armenians have high R1b and are generally though to have moved there from somewhere else. Maybe the original R1b homeland no longer has much R1b and the hotspots of ancient R1b are really displaced survival pockets from somewhere else. Places like the Caucuses and Armenia seem more likely to be retreat areas than origin points to me.

It shows up as "Caucasus" on Eurogenes tests because the highest scores are found among Georgians, Armenians and others near the Caucasus. On some tests, like the "Hunter/Gatherer-Farmer test, it shows up as Anatolian.

On shaded/gradiated maps the Caucasus appear to follow both Danubian and Mediterranean routes, but there is a "white spot" around the Basque areas.

.... Perhaps, but I think the point of this thread was the connection of R1b from the Caucasus and European R1b.

Gosh, I hate* to bring up this piece of information, but here goes.

I agree with Busby's finding that there is little STR diversity for the R-L11 family across Europe or anywhere for that matter. On the other hand, if I do STR diversity calculations on R-L23xL11 I find that R-L23xL11 in Europe is about the same age as L11 while R-L23xL11 in SW Asia and the Caucasus is significantly older, or more diverse. These are paragroups so that is a caveat as we don't know how they are mixed together.

* If you don't trust or like STR diversity calculations please lets discuss it on the STR Wars thread.

On the other hand, if I do STR diversity calculations on R-L23xL11 I find that R-L23xL11 in Europe is about the same age as L11 while R-L23xL11 in SW Asia and the Caucasus is significantly older, or more diverse. These are paragroups so that is a caveat as we don't know how they are mixed together.

I can't reproduce those results, at least not using the Myres et al.2010 data, where when using the 10 STRs Western European (n=29) R-L23xL11 has a variance of 0.2759, Anatolia (n=58) has a variance of 0.2828, and the Caucasus has a variance of 0.3063. Again, the part that I can't reproduce with SW is the significantly more diverse. Anatolia appears to be barely more diverse than Western Europe; the Caucasus on the other hand appears more diverse than both. But then again like you said, this is a paragroup, so perhaps the best thing to do is to test everything is that is L23+ and see where the greatest diversity happens. I plan to do this to the Myres et al(2010) dataset whenever I have some time.

On the other hand, if I do STR diversity calculations on R-L23xL11 I find that R-L23xL11 in Europe is about the same age as L11 while R-L23xL11 in SW Asia and the Caucasus is significantly older, or more diverse. These are paragroups so that is a caveat as we don't know how they are mixed together.

I can't reproduce those results, at least not using the Myres et al.2010 data, where when using the 10 STRs Western European (n=29) R-L23xL11 has a variance of 0.2759, Anatolia (n=58) has a variance of 0.2828, and the Caucasus has a variance of 0.3063. Again, the part that I can't reproduce with SW is the significantly more diverse. Anatolia appears to be barely more diverse than Western Europe; the Caucasus on the other hand appears more diverse than both. But then again like you said, this is a paragroup, so perhaps the best thing to do is to test everything is that is L23+ and see where the greatest diversity happens. I plan to do this to the Myres et al(2010) dataset whenever I have some time.

I don't think the academic studies use enough markers. I get the higher diversity back east from 67 length haplotypes in our public DNA projects for confirmed R-L23xL11 people.

I don't think the academic studies use enough markers. I get the higher diversity back east from 67 length haplotypes in our public DNA projects for confirmed R-L23xL11 people.

What are the sample sizes you are using? Also are you breaking Europe into Eastern and Western Europe? What are the populations that are yielding the highest diversity on the east, or are you just sampling everyone who isn't European as SW Asia. I mean, are you separating the Caucasus from Anatolia or not?

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but one of the most striking statistics about R1b and the Caucasus, is that the Basques score 0 (zero) on Autosomal Caucasus scores. Irish, French, Spanish, British etc. all show a genetic relationship with current Caucasus populations, but the Basques don't.

Strange.

Not strange. The Basques are distinguished by very low frequencies of Y-DNA haplogroups E, G and J, thought to be associated with Neolithic farmers, all of which are at markedly high frequencies in the Caucasus. See Martínez-Cruz et al 2012 and Balanovsky et al 2011.

I've mentioned this before somewhere, but one of the most striking statistics about R1b and the Caucasus, is that the Basques score 0 (zero) on Autosomal Caucasus scores. Irish, French, Spanish, British etc. all show a genetic relationship with current Caucasus populations, but the Basques don't.

Strange.

Not strange. The Basques are distinguished by very low frequencies of Y-DNA haplogroups E, G and J, thought to be associated with Neolithic farmers, all of which are at markedly high frequencies in the Caucasus. See Martínez-Cruz et al 2012 and Balanovsky et al 2011.

I think it is strange that the Basques are very low in Haplogroups E, G, and J when the aurrounding areas are not.

Right. I'm with you. The Basques have a significant level (c. 7%) of a rarer Neolithic haplogroup - I2a1a (M26), found in the Late Neolithic Treilles cave burials in the South of France. (Or at least I2a1 was identified there and Ken N. thought the haplotypes fitted I2a1a.) This haplogroup is found at highest density in Sardinia, but the probable origin point was the Balkans.